The separate PvP & PvE classes makes the most sense to me personally and i have found i do better with one spec in PVP and i do the most DPS in PvE with another.

The Idea of having a spec designed for PvP actually sounds like a good idea but like what was written if you like Frost and the PvP is fire your screwed.But couldn't blizz allow an alt to all the spec for PvP and PvEIts done with the armor we have two sets if we do both. so y not have a

The fact that we now have dual spec available to us allows us to be more experimental in our spec choices.

I think that for a "pure" or one role toon such as a mage or hunter etc. one spec choice could be built around talent dependant stats so as to create a good "leveling" (think of the 3% hit rating in tier one of old MM spec) spec and once you can get hit capped etc with one piece of gear nearer to end game you can switch to the "pro" spec. or the spec that allows a couple utilities for raids etc and higher output in lieu of hit rating expertise, etc etc... hell even a spec with a + % exp gain would be kind of cool for the "leveling" build.

and thirdly ofcourse the pvp spec full of utility at the the cost of high sustainable output.

as for the multi - function toons like a healy, tanky, dps..y pally or druid maybe this could hold true, like the druid tank and dps specs are similar but which aspect you use and gear has a bearing on your abilities as could be with warriors DKs pallys.. and you could still build these "leveling builds" "endgame builds" and maybe the healy classes could be silimar to pvp builds similar to holy pallys with lots of survivability and utility, (hand of freedom, and whatnot)

so that utimately there would be a decent leveling build, a decent raid viable build, and a decent pvp build with all toons.

as far as the hybrid classes, they could be slightly gimped as they once were to pay for the extra abilities / utilities that we don't all get to bring with us everywhere we go.(for example i shouldn't be able to heal my pet at a pace greater than an equal level mob can dish it out and thus a druid shouldn't be able to either unless they are a healer in which case they shouldn't be able to out dps me against the same mob - not that i'm saying they can now, i think we are pretty good as far as balance goes in wow atm - blasphemy, i know)

while on that subject, i dont like the self heals. i don't want a heal for myself as a hunter.. it just feels wrong. are there any classes that exist now without a self heal mechanic?

I have a few ideas on the drab progress bar process of leveling aswell but thats an idea for a different thread.

the capability to dual-spec leaves the choice of two, that is best served by having 3 different specs

But, some tuning needs to be done, especially for pvp for some classes

in PVP, how does a hunter kill?

he sends pet, pew, pew, pew

HOW IS IT COUNTERED?BM -- rush the hunter and stay close enough he can't kill youMM -- rush the hunter and stay close enough he can't kill youSurv -- rush the hunter and stay close enough he can't kill you

hmmmm.... seems like no real difference to me

I would like to see some flavor in my favorite class, and Im sure other classes are the same way. Make players figure out each of the enemy players; no more automatic win based on paper, rock and scissors.

I appreciate that blizzard is finally getting some love to the pvpers!

I believe this game should be balanced aroundSkill>Class>Gear Than you guys could finally advertise bring the player and not the class with confidence. In both aspects of pvp and pve.....

I'm more of a pvp player so, my opinion will be more pvp oriented. Sorry PVE guys! How exactly is pvp being balanced in MOP? Is it going to be balanced around world pvp? Arenas 3v3? Battlegrounds.... etc... the list goes on. In my opinion this game should be balanced around 1v1 this would make arena compositions more enjoyable and it eliminates the cookie cutter teams.... or flavor of the month comps etc.... This would make rbgs more enjoyable as well because this would allow the teams to bring people of similar skill level to achieve the same goal.

The current system is flawed in so many ways i was hoping for a fix this expansion. As of now CLASS>GEAR>SKILL and that is just wrong.For example at high end RBG ratings nobody wants ARMS warriors because dk aoe dmg and cc are better designed for rbgs. Warriors are forced to go prot if they want their t2 items. That is unfair for people who want to achieve high ratings but are class restricted. This also applies to arenas. I will be using warriors again... sorry but this is the class i been playing for many years. Current warrior comps can be made better by either adding a rogue or a dk to fill the warrior spot. WHY? because they bring more utility than a warrior better cc, better designed skills.... etc... Again it goes back to class restriction. This goes vice versa for other classes for rbgs/arenas.

Also allowing people to bring powerful PvE items to pvp just makes pvp even worse to balance. All high rated RBG teams have mostly casters classes with legendary staff and their cunning trinket.... or 2 piece bonuses, or rogues with legendary. Why are pvp people being forced to pve...... to be successful in pvp makes no senses? PVE ITEMS SHOULD BE BANNED FROM COMPETITIVE PVP. But should be allowed to be used in regular battlegrounds,like you stated guys stated in another post.. that's OK as long as it helps them get their pvp gear to compete.

Being class restricted is the worst thing that can possibly happen in pvp/pve environment. If you were to balance 1v1 we can remove all this bars from holding people back from playing classes that they actually enjoy and forcing them to reroll one patch after another one.. How exactly can it be done i dont know the answer its very hard to do. But you guys listening more to your community and trying to fix the issues more accordingly in a timely manner would reduce flaming for sure.

I have always been in favor of a complete re-write of the whole talent tree system in favor of dropping seperate talent trees.

I play a Warrior, Paladin, Mage and Warlock just about every day. A warrior should be a warrior and his role should be selected by what gear he is wearing. If he wants to dps, he puts on dps gear. If he wants to tank, he puts on tank gear. No talent swapping. Just different abilities to use. If I want to tank, I enter defensive stance and equip my tanking gear. If I want to dps I swap to dps stance like battle for long fights and for burst I may swap stance to fury to take advantage of a full rage bar and then swap back to battle when it is depeleted.

For the Paladin it should be auras. Devotion aura and righteous fury and tank gear means I am tanking. Ret aura and taking RF off and swap to dps gear means I am dps'ing and concentration aura and healing gear means I am healing.

For a warlock you might have gear, like previous expansions, that boost specific abilities. + fire damage + shadow damage etc. Need burst and your burst abilities are fire? Put on your + fire gear. Shadow uses less mana and is best for long fights? Put on your + shadow gear.

Talent specs should of course flesh out your character and allow for decreased cooldowns and damage or defense bonuses. Resists for the raid etc.

What has happened over the course of the last two expansions that I simply hate is how most classes now do the same thing. I realize the the idea is to get everyone a chance to play and stop most of the raid groups from picking a person based upon class and spec but what Blizzard has done is actually make everyone interchangeable in a bad way. We need melee dps, it doesn't matter what. We need ranged dps, it doesn't matter what. We need a healer, it doesn't matter what.

As a person that plays tanks 99% of the time I remember Warrior tanks dominated in Vanilla, still dominated in BC but only because people had a hard time trusting the idea of a Paladin tank. Paladins started to really shine in AOE tanking and by the end of BC most people were using Paladins to run quickly through content that everyone had out geared. When wrath came out you can see that Blizzard decided to make all the tanking classes aoe tanks and for the most part that hasn't changed much. When Cata came out we had to re-learn how to CC which now every class, except the warrior, could do. Why can paladins CC? Such nonsense. Now we have all overgeard that content and we are all back to aoeing the 5mans. But why bring a warrior to a raid against a paladin? Just for the buffs? Well buffs have changed so much you don't really need any specific type of tank. Just play what you like.

Again, I understand the reason for this. Too much crying from people feeling left out.

Blizzard has competition out there in the MMORPG community and may of these companies are trying new systems to see how they work. One of the forthcoming games has even decided to do away with the whole tank and healer system and make everyone do everything but in their on unique way. For people like me who actually enjoy tanking I am not sure I like that idea but again, the whole notion of a "tank" isn't realistic if you think about it. Why should a monster focus on somone just because they are told to. I never understood what taunting a monster would actually acomplish. "Your mother was a hamster and your father stank of eldeberries" will not have much effect on non-humanoid monsters who happen to speak the same language as the taunt.

Oh and STOP balancing for PvP that affects PvE. Have a PvP spec that automatically is applied when entering a battleground or arena. A Spec that you can not access outside of a battleground or arena.

tldr;

Do away with talent trees. Make roles dependant on types of gear and stances (or forms if you are a druid). Talents should be about slight buffs to specific aspects of your character that do not take away, or add to, their contribution to a raid. Talents just make you more unique. Keep the trinity system but make specific tank and healing classes much better at specific fights(like it used to be). AOE tank class, single target tank class, tank that can absorb the big hits. Aoe healing class, single target healing class, super raid buff and light to medium on both single target and healing.

Dps burst and sustained dps depending on gear not spec.

Oh and STOP balancing for PvP that affects PvE. Have a PvP spec that automatically is applied when entering a battleground or arena. A Spec that you can not access outside of a battleground or arena.

I like how in number five he said that completely changing the spec would make people angry...but do they not realize how much they redid death knights? They made 2 dps trees and 1 tank tree...I personally liked being able to tank dual wield on my dk and pretty much abandoned her when they made blood the main spec. I also feel like they completely threw shamans under the bus at first by changing healing and elemental to the point where it was hard to recognize it. I didn't play enhancement in wrath so I can't say anything there. I do like the idea of introducing warriors to a ranged ability and locks to tanking. I have seen a lot of raids fall through because we have an abundance of melee but no ranged, or no tanks but lots of pure dps classes. Maybe not revamp the class but add options like death knights had in wrath...it could depend on the way you spec in the tree that defines if you dps/tank/heal.

I think that numbers 2, 3, and 4 kind of go hand in hand, quite frankly. In vanilla WoW days, specialty was critical and having the right mix of toons with the right skills for the job was critical. I understand that as more expansions (and thereby more features) are made available, there will inevitably be some common ground between different DPS classes. Nevertheless, part of what makes playing a particular kind of class fun is the uniqueness of the class. Shamans don't play like mages, mages don't play like warlocks, etc. That uniqueness is a big part of what allows character talent, gear, and other such choices to be meaningful to the player: they're all made to capitalize on a particular advantage set offered by the class and spec played. That kind of uniqueness of class and spec is also what made dual specialization such a useful perk for those who paid the hefty sum of gold for it. I like playing enhancement shamans, but dual speccing with resto was really useful for dungeon groups. I also know a lot of people who simply prefer the play style of elemental shammys. No one is better, per se. It just depends upon play style, mood, and needs of the situation.

Think of it this way. If all soft drinks tasted like Coke or Diet Coke, what would those of us who like Dr. Pepper do when we wanted to order a soda? That's essentially the case when DPS roles are made too much alike. Bring a few new drinks into the mix, though, and the whole prospect of drinking soda becomes much more appealing. For some it's because they simply like or don't like certain drinks, but for others it's because they can order whatever they're in the mood for. And so it is with keeping DPS classes and roles unique. The more variety there is, the more unique and meaningful character development choices will be, the more unique the combinations of players in dungeons and PvP will be, and the better off players will be.

I reallllly liked the part in number 5 that stated "In this model, either Arms or Fury goes away and gets replaced with something. (Archery? Healing?) Warlocks and other pure classes would need a massive redo to end up with say a melee and tanking warlock. Everyone becomes a hybrid" I liked this simply because I have been discussing this with friends of mine for years. The idea that a "pure" dps class can be something totally unique would be such a fun change to a genre that has been so long defined by "pure" classes. Specifically, my friends and I talked about mage tanking, and I would imagine this could be spread to any of the other pure dps classes. I understand how difficult and game revamping this would be, but I thoroughly enjoy the thought of that happening. Warrior healing, shamans tanking (like back in vanilla a bit =D ) but still in the pure dps' specific "dps" tree, there could still be variations, and abilities you could only get for certain point layout etc. ie. warriors could go down and get mortal strike, but this choice would limit them from getting bloodthirst. Anyway, just an idea, but I really enjoyed seeing the development team think about what myself and others have been dreaming about =)

I've always been of the belief that you should enter playing a class knowing what it does. I am playing a fighter, therefore I tank. I'm playing a Warlock, I debuff and cc. etc etc.

In wow this could translate as one spec for pvp, one spec for general pve (solo and 5 man) and the highest dps spec and one for raids. This raid spec would have most of the utility for the class. Raid based spells that might be, for example, long duration dots or slow cast high damage low mana nukes.

This means you would know what you are playing, but if that role is already taken you could drop back into your high damage spec. ie, if there was a shaman and priest in a group then one would heal the other dps.

I also believe that the way you like to play and the way you excel personally in the game should be the most emphasized in this. But lets switch things up here a bit, has anyone ever tried to play the lower level BGs ( 10-14,15-19,20-24,25-29 in particular ) Hunters and BoA Rogues absolutely dominate, it seems like those Hybrid classes just can't stand up at those levels. I personally enjoy playing my low levels in BGs, its takes more fundamentals of the game to have sucess at in my opinion. But when im playing i just see BoA stacked Hunters demolishing people, but the BoA thing too ive noticed that if you do not have these you are pretty much screwed to be honest. I understand that these were put in to basically thank the players who leveled from 1-80, but i believe that anyone whos account is able to get BoAs should be put in their own separate battle group, this give the newer players a much much better chance to stand a chance, therefor learning more about their role, resulting in both of these battle groups working more together as a team in order to survive and win instead of stacked Hunters and Rogues train wrecking people at the graveyard.

I like models 3 and 4 i like four because people will brign along a shadow priest because they buff amage and make it easier on there healers and now days can switch to heals is something goes wrong....I have ot say my main is a shadow priest and I remeber back when I couldn't do crap for a raid damage wise but they brought me for my buffs and abilities and I loved it...though recently it seems i'm in limbo I don't brign that much to raids.....it seems with all my fears and such it is turnign ti a more pvp equated spec. Number four I enjoy number four because it levels pvp out quite abit but it also gives rennagades room to jump in with a spec no one expects and rip up the pvp i.e. vanilla arcane mage pvp......

I think the 5th choice would be the best. yet I don't understand why you need to have a melee spec for a warlock. Why not just allow them to use the kits from their current specs? Combine all the dmg specs into 1 and use the talents to further specialize them i.e utility slows, stuns, snares, etc. I feel this would stop all the fuss over which spec is best because there is only one spec, but that spec has all the abilities from said class (warlock: affliction, demonology, destruction) wrapped into one. And they can pick the utility spells they find most interesting, viable for a raid/pvp encounter.

Pumpkin, I completely agree with your DK frustration. I think that was the pivotal moment when I started growing dissatisfied with the game.

In regard to the current class/spec/role issues, it almost seems like Blizzard ignores the simplest answers. For example, Coriel said it best:

"There is a model missing.

Model 6: Do not have multiple specs for certain classes.

There is only one rogue, hunter, warlock, mage spec. Balance that spec against the other classes."

This format solves the two issues most haunting the developers, namely, balancing three spec trees that all perform the same function: DPS; and balancing "utilities" unique to each spec tree. Granted, this concept becomes more difficult to implement for the multi-role classes, but it provides a much simpler starting point to the problem. The bottom line for the developers is, don't approach class design as if each class is the same! As any player will tell you, a hunter is not a warrior! So why would you attempt to design those two classes using the same mold (i.e., with three talent trees)?

Second, the developers could simpify things by moving certain talents into a passive effect. A rogue, for example, doesn't need talent points to reduce his stealth cooldown. He's a rogue! He's been sneaking around his whole life, so to speak. He doesn't need talent points to make his poisons more effective. He's a rogue! He's been poisoning people for 85 levels. You see where I'm going with this. Those talent points are being used on things intrinsic to the class. Likewise, a hunter shouldn't have to spend points making his pet better, and a mage shouldn't have to decide what color his spells will be. A hunter's pet should always do maximum damage, and a mage should always be able to cast whatever spell he or she wants.

Finally, I just have to get this off my chest. Get rid of movement restriction on spellcasting/abilities! A mage can't cast a spell and move at the same time? Really?! A priest can't cast a heal and move at the same time? Ghostcrawler, I'm calling you out. Make it stop. Tongue in cheek of course, but really, do away with that mechanic.